138 SYLVA SCOTICA. 



his father David's time, an officer is mentioned as 

 being appointed to superintend " the olive trees, 

 and the sycamore trees that were in the low plains," 

 1 Chron. xxvii. 28. And the royal Psalmist, in re- 

 counting the marks of the Almighty's displeasure 

 against the Israelites, includes his destroying " their 

 Sycamore trees with frost." It is probably from 

 associations of this kind that it has been planted 

 more frequently near religious edifices than in other 

 situations. 



THE SYCAMORE AT BISHOPTON, 



in Renfrewshire, is the property of Sir John Max- 

 well, Bart. It is a stately spreading tree, twenty 

 feet in circumference at the ground, about sixty feet 

 in height, and contains seven hundred and twenty 

 feet of solid timber. It stands on the banks of the 

 Clyde, on the opposite side of which the insulated 

 rock of Dumbarton rises in solitary majesty, crowned 

 with its strong fortress, of little use in " these weak 

 piping times of peace," but once deemed the " Key 

 of Scotland ;" and still exciting a melancholy inte- 

 rest as the place where Wallace, that hero dear alike 

 to the sober page of history, and the wilder graces 

 of tradition, was delivered up to his enemies by the 

 treachery of a pretended friend. 



The Sycamore was little known in this country, 

 even so late as the 17th century. Chaucer speaks 



